I'm Back

Yes, I'll admit it. I did just vanish off the face of the earth so far as this blog has been concerned for the past few months. Suffice it to say, I've been evaluating things a bit. At least for the time being, I've decided to continue with All Booked Up. Over the past few months, I've even missed missed reviewing books here.

On the other hand, I'm going to be making some changes to my blogging. Mainly that I no longer wish to accept review copies of books. As great as seeing that package in the mail has been, I found that the books were adding pressure to my reading. Work does that enough these days. For this, I've decided that I'd rather read what I want to read, when I want to read it, rather than the "must read one of these books" feeling I was having.

I really like re-reading and I've been feeling guilty about that because of the feeling that I had to get to this book or that book 'right now'.

Beyond all this, I haven't decided what other changes I'm going to make right off.

I'm also taking a six month course on indexing, so there's bound to be a few posts on that topic, including reviews of books I read on the topic (including the Nancy Mulvany text Indexing Books Second Edition). That is also going to take priority over the blog too, if I have to make a choice from time to time.

Milestones

July and August are turning into months for milestones here at All Booked Up. In July the blog managed to finally break that 100 follower barrier, something I'd been looking forward to for a while now. Follower 100 is Alaiel Kreuz. Thanks for that.


August has it's own milestone to report and we're only three days into the month! My original review of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See has gathered over a thousand pageviews. At this time, the number is 1,127 pageviews. Frankly, that just stuns me.


So, what's going to be the next major milestone?

Crosslinking Done!

And if anything deserves an exclamation point, it's that. Over the last week or so, I've gone back to the first post and linked up reviews to book titles all the way back. That's over seven hundred posts. Of course, I'm going to have to do it again periodically as I add more books and posts.

The main culprit posts are the It's Monday..., Upcoming Books, and formerly the Mailbox Monday posts as there are a lot of books in those that have yet to be read and reviewed. Those are the ones I went back and linked to their review posts.

NaNoWriMo

I must be nuts! I signed up for NaNoWrimo again this year - and without a very clear story idea. 50,000 words in thirty days. That's a lot of writing. I managed it last year, and the year before, but to be honest, I don't know how much reading I'm going to be getting done. At least some though, I'm sure, so I have something to post here.

I promise not to just abandon this blog, even if it's just word-count updates for the next thirty days - unless anyone actually wants to read my ravings on NaNoWriMo. In which case, I'll be glad to post more.

Blog Housecleaning

I've gone through and added a new widget: the top commenter's widget. I thought it would be interesting to see who comments the most. Unfortunately I don't know where to find the one I would have liked: the one J. Kaye used to have on her blog. Doesn't seem to be there anymore. Still this one's interesting to see.

At the same time, I've stripped out links to last year's challenges, and also updated the participants list for the Pre-Printing Press Challenge for this year.

Also added was a link to Sharon Kay Penman's blog under In Their Own Words, which is my list of author blogs.

Excuse for being so quiet

It's simple. The Aeneid is taking me far longer to read than I thought it would. Because of that, I don't want to start another book in the mean time. That would simply push Virgil's classic into the abandoned status. Of course, it hasn't been helped when I forgot to take the book to work with me to read on my breaks.

Update

I know I've let All Booked Up slide badly this week. I'm sorry.  I haven't lost interest in the blog or abandoned it. It's also not because I haven't been reading. Completely the opposite in fact.

I ended up with a really bad cold last week (I'm still feeling it) and just didn't have the energy or focus to write up proper reviews or anything. I've still been reading however (only thing to do when I couldn't sleep).

The books that need to be reviewed now:
Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning by Judith MacKenzie McCuin
Exile's Song by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Shadow Matrix by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Traitor's Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley

I also need to come up with a book and read it this week for my guest review slot at Royal Reviews.

Canadian Author/Book Tag

Given the way I'm raving over the Canadian medal winners in the 2010 Olympics over on Twitter,(I watched the first Canadian Gold Medal won on our home soil tonight), it's futile to hide the fact that I'm Canadian, and live in the current Olympic city.

So, I'm changing my policy a bit and identifying the Canadian books and authors I read. As of tonight, I've gone back and added a tag for Candadian authors and books to the blog, tagging those authors and books I'm aware of as Canadian. I may have missed one or two, so if you are aware of one I didn't get, please let me know.

Annabel Lyon's blog added

I've added a link to Annabel Lyon's blog The Golden Mean to my "In Their Own Words" link list. She's the author of the Giller finalist novel The Golden Mean, which I read and reviewed last month.

If you haven't taken a look at the book, you should. It's been very popular, and any book shortlisted for the Giller or the Governer's Choice award is well written. If you have, you might find the blog to be interesting too. She's filled it with entries about the period and the culture. I know I'm following it, being fascinated with ancient Greece.

Widget Update

I've added the Haiti Disaster Relief widget Blogger has created over at the top left side of my blog. If you can spare anything for the Red Cross to help with this, it would be greatly appreciated.

This disaster, well the photos and video we're getting on the news, there just aren't words to properly describe it. They need our help.

Thanks.

The Coming Week

I'm a day late for the Mailbox Monday post and the It's Monday What Are You Reading.

Anyway, in the last week I recieved:
Our Hart, Elegy for a Concubine by Lloyd Lofthouse. It's an ARC and I'm looking forward to reading it.

From my Dad:
Michaelangelo's Notebook by Paul Christopher. Dad thought I'd like to read it now he's done with it.
Variable Star by Robert Heinlein and Spider Robinson. I like Heinlein, but I don't remember ever reading this one, so it'll be a nice treat.

Bought for myself:
Old Man's War by John Scalzi. All I can say about this book is WOW! I'm going to have to hunt down his other books now, including the two sequels. Here's hoping my local library has them.


Last week I managed to finish the following books:
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

This week I'm planning to read:
Life After 187 by Wade J. Halverson. I know I started reading it before, but the book got accidentally packed away for the move. Now, I've found it again, but I have to start from the first page.

The Golden Mean by Nick Bantock. The third book in the Griffin and Sabine series.

Our Hart by Lloyd Lofthouse.

Looking Back on 2009 and Looking Ahead

A new year is here now, marking a year of my running this blog seriously.

Looking back on 2009:
Challenges:
I managed to complete (surpass in fact) the LibraryThing 100 Books in 2009 challenge. My post listing the books is here (and it's why I'm not listing the books I read for the year here).
I participated in and completed the Love Bites challenge, from the Royal Reviews blog.
Then there was the What's In A Name challenge, which I didn't manage to complete. I didn't manage to read a book with a building in the title, or one with a relative.
Another successful challenge was the TBR Challenge Lite. This is one that I hope is running again this year. With my Unread Books 2010 list, I need it.

There were a lot of really good books that I ended up reading over the past year. Many of which I have to thank the folks over at LibraryThing as well as the many blogs I follow for telling me about. You lot are the bane of both my book list and my budget.
Anyway, the best non-fiction book I read  in the past year was also the first ARC I was given for review: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett.
I'm having a harder time deciding on the best novel though. It's a toss-up between the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs and Hand of Isis by Jo Graham.

2009 was also the year I started my own challenge: the Pre Printing Press Challenge, which will run until April 30th of this year.

Looking ahead for 2010:

Challenges on the go:
The Pre-Printing Press Challenge which has four more months to go. I've got some work to do on this one to make my goals. I'm also thinking about running it again for 2010-2011.
The Arthurian Challenge, which runs until the end of March. I signed up for three to six books, and I've managed to finish three, so technically, I've completed the minimum requirement for the challenge, but I'm goint to try and get at least one more done.
The Really Old Classics Challenge. This one runs until the end of February, and I'm reading the book for it now: Shakespeare's The Midsummer Night's Dream.

I have no idea if I'm going to sign up for more challenges this year.

I'm going to start a new feature on my blog, a more or less weekly post called "What Would You Recommend?" where I suggest a book and ask what you would recommend for someone who liked that book to read. It's going to be more or less weekly because I don't have regular access to the internet anymore.

I'm also committing to at least one book review per week (hopefully more, but the length of time it takes to read a book can vary. If there isn't a review post in that time frame, feel free to ask me why (and see what creative excuses I can come up with too :) ). Sometimes that little push is what it takes.

Here's wishing everybody a happy and healthy New Year.

Reading Update

Instead of the It's Monday, What are you Reading post, I'm doing this this week.

I'm nearly finished with The Golden Mean (Amazon.com link) by Annabel Lyon. I'm enjoying the book overall, it's well written as a Giller Prize finalist, but the story is a bit brutal/gory in places. On the other hand, that fits the time period well.

I'm also reading The Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare

Update: Internet Access

After this morning, I'm no longer going to have regular internet access for the foreseeable future. Instead, I'm going to be making use of the local library for my internet. This means that reviews and the like are more likely to be posted two or three at a time, and there may be delays in my responding to comments. I'm absolutely not giving up on the blog though. All Booked Up has been too much fun.

Spam!

I already knew I wasn't too fond of the canned meat. The live ones are putting themselves even lower than that on my scale of liking. In other words, All Booked Up has been discovered by the spammers. So far, it's not too bad, but I am contemplating deleting one or two posts that are particular favorite targets, and they've started hitting the rest of the blog as well.

My apologies if you see something inappropriate in the comments. I'm deleting the stuff as fast as I get notified about it. I don't want to go to moderated comments though, much less stop all comments, as they're part of what makes the blog so much fun for me.

NaNoWriMo

I've decided (last minute, as usual) to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year.

The goal is 50,000 words between November 1 and November 30. I have to be insane, as I haven't even fully figured out a basic story idea yet.

Either way, it's going to cut into my reading time somewhat, so there may be a few fewer reviews and posts here over November. Still, it's a fun challenge, and I loved doing it last year.

Lack of recent posts update

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, or anything similar. I'm just having a bit of trouble actually finishing books these days. Currently in the line of books in progress:

1. Cathy Marie Buchanan's The Day The Falls Stood Still (This will get finished. The review has been promised to Royal Reviews)
2. Diana Gabaldon's The Fiery Cross (I've tried to re-read this book off and on a few times since it came out in paperback. No dice. Still, I have A Breath Of Snow And Ashes waiting for me to finish this one)
3. Bad Moon Rising by Sherrilyn Kenyon (Almost finished, and a good thing! It's a library Speed-Read and due back in a day or so)

After those, absolutely nothing on my shelves is calling my name. Perhaps the mythology book I borrowed from the library...

Reading Update

I'm on vacation, just got into town after a few days on the train today. At the moment I'm borrowing a computer and internet access, but I hope to be able to post reviews sometime in the next couple of days. I plan to get the first one written tonight or tomorrow. As it is, I do have some books to review now. Coming in the future to this blog are reviews of:

1. Kelley Armstrong's novel Bitten
2. The Quest of the Holy Grail (for the Pre-Printing Press Challenge and the Arthurian Challenge)
3. The BBC Radio Play of The Lord of the Rings. At the moment I'm finishing episode seven. This is honestly one of my favorites.
4. After that I'll either be finishing S. M. Stirling's Against The Tide Of Years or reading Boyett's novel Ariel.

Yes, I did pack a lot of reading material. And, going by previous vacations, I'm bound to buy more.

Site Update

I had the bright idea of trying one of the many custom templates out there for Blogger today. I've wanted to use a 3 column layout for a while, so I spent some time today looking through the sites listed recently in the Blogger Buzz and found a nice one to try.

It didn't work out. The process deleted all of the widgets on my blog (there's really too many of them, but I use them all), screwed up a half dozen other things, and didn't work as all of the features were linked from places like photobucket (which were all over their limits).

I've just spent the last couple of hours reverting to my old template and reconstructing the widgets (or most of them). In the process though, I've removed a couple, so maybe the blog will load a bit quicker now.

Needless to say this was time I could have been spending reading, and I'm not inclined to try changing to a custom layout again any time soon.

Edited to add: I've changed the template again anyway, to another of Blogger's built-in layouts. This time the width is adjustable, so there's less wasted screen-space, and the white background should make the site more readable. On the other hand, I preferred the sans-serif font of the previous template. Oh well, you can't have everything if it's not a custom design.

Update

I've added a box on the side for the challenges I'm currently participating in. At the moment there's just three of them: The Arthurian Challenge, the TBR Lite challenge and the What's In A Name challenge.

I've managed to complete a number of challenges as well, most recently the Love Bites Challenge.